Eldren: The Book of the Dark (2 page)

It looked down at the six inches of iron protruding from its breastbone...just as the first flame exploded into life, taking away the lower face and much of the head hair.

It burned...a deep golden fire that consumed it entirely in less than five seconds...a fire that stretched Jim’s skin and singed his eyebrows even as he grinned and the beast screamed. He was left with the moonlight and the cold and the ashes and the madness echoing round in his head.

The spar was still there, lying in the midst of a heap of smoking ashes. He left it where it was and piled some of the fallen stones on top of it, giggling all the while.

Sandra was breathing heavily when he finally got to her but at least the blood had stopped. As he lifted her into his arms she let out a scream which drove through his skull.

“The baby. Oh God…it’s coming. It’s coming.”

He didn’t remember much of the next half-hour, only fragments…driving like a maniac as she sobbed quietly behind him…the light in the deer’s eyes just before the car hit it dead on, smashing the car’s headlights into a million tinkling fragments…the small twinkling lights in the distance as he managed to avoid the cliff edge and, finally, the iron gate on the path which he fell over as the doctor came towards him and he collapsed into a faint.

He had a vague memory of being put in an armchair and practically force fed whisky as his wife was carried upstairs and the doctor called for some help but his legs wouldn’t move and his arms were heavy and sleep called him back again.

He dreamed...hot lurid fantasies of violence and fire, of rape and bloodletting and of a cold black fury that carried all before it. He woke from screams into screams.

His legs pushed him out of the chair and towards the door long before his brain was fully awake and he got halfway up the stairs before he recognized the voice behind the screaming. He reached the door just as the screams stopped.

Early morning sunlight was streaming into the room, lighting a scene that would be forever etched into his memory.

The doctor is standing off to one side, his left hand covering his mouth, his right clutching his chest as if to keep his heart in.

An old woman is lying across the bed in a dead faint, her gray wisps of hair mingled with the blood from his wife’s legs.

His wife is lying there, throat muscles straining, mouth open in a long soundless scream which refuses to come. Her gaze is fixed on the shape writhing on the carpet, ignoring the wisps of smoke which are beginning to rise from her legs, the charring and peeling and blackening immaterial to her pain at the sight of their child.

And there on the floor lies their future, burning golden in the first rays if the sun, being cleansed in the purifying light of the new day, his son. The last things he sees before darkness takes him away for a long time are the fangs, two tiny spikes sliding out of those new pink gums, the fangs which are the last things to disappear as the fire burns out and the ashes shift in the breeze.

GENESIS

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DARK

IN THE beginning was the word and the word was God.

And on the first day God created the heavens and the earth and darkness was on the face of the void. And God looked down at his creation and saw that it was good.

And God created the stars to light the darkness and the light from them blazed across the skies to proclaim his majesty. And God looked at his work and it was good.

And on the second day God looked at the earth and caused to be brought forth the land from the waters, raising the mountains in his glory. And the star light shone from the roots of his creation and it was good.

And on the third day God created all the creatures that lived on the earth and all the trees that grew in the ground and all the fish that swam in the sea. And God looked on his creation and it was good.

And on the fourth day God looked down on the earth and said “I will raise a creature in my image to have dominion over all things, to be my light in this darkness.”

And God took the light from the stars and the dust from the earth and blew his life into the makings thereof and God created the first brother, and his name was Yoriah. And God looked at his work and behold it was good.

Yoriah stood tall and strong and the light of the stars burned in his eyes. All the creatures of the earth paid obedience to him and he was their shepherd and ran with them in the fields and the canyons. And God said “I will make you a companion to befriend you in the darkness”, and while Yoriah slept God took the blood from his body and mingled it with the dust and clay of the earth. And God created Eriah...the first Sister. And the stars shone down on the morning of the fifth day.

Yoriah and Eriah stood on the highest mountain and looked over their domain. And God said to them “Only one law will I give to you, that thou will not eat of the meat of the creatures of this my creation. All else is thine.”

And Yoriah and Eriah went forth into the world.

And it came to pass that Eriah was taken with a hunger and the great serpent whispered to her, saying “The meat you may not eat, but the blood is not meat...the blood is warm and will succor you. Surely you are not to be denied succor?”

And Eriah listened to the serpent and began to crave, and that was the original sin.

And she left the side of Yoriah and wandered among the hills away from the sight of God. And there she did find a lamb and she took it to her bosom and with her teeth she did rip at its flesh. And the blood flowed, and she drank of it, and it was good.

Yoriah came upon Eriah in that vale and when he saw the blood upon her countenance he waxed greatly afeard saying, “Cleanse yourself, lest the Lord sees what has come to pass.” But a great frenzy had come upon Eriah and she threw herself upon Yoriah, rending him with nails and teeth.

And where their blood mingled with the clay there sprang forth life, new creations in their likeness. These were the Eldren, and they were legion.

And the Eldren saw all the creatures of the earth and coveted them and there was a great slaughter and the blood ran in rivers under the stars.

And the Lord God looked down upon his earth and waxed great in his wrath. And the earth trembled and shook and Yoriah and Eriah hid themselves from the eyes of the Lord. But the Lord found them in their hiding place and dragged them forth under the stars, saying, “Why hast thou forsaken me? I will send you forth, and till the day of your judgment you will be pariah.”

And the Lord laid these curses on them and their creation...that they would thirst, for all eternity, that they would forever live in darkness, and that they would never bear children in his image.

And in the sky above them he placed the great burning of the sun to blot out the darkness, and in the night sky he placed the moon to forever remind them of their iniquity.

Because Yoriah and Eriah were his first made he took pity, and did not unmake them. He sent them into the ground, to sleep forever till the day of their judgments.

The Eldren he scattered to the ends of the earth to wander until one came who would redeem them, who would cleanse them of the thirst.

And the morning was the morning of the sixth day.

And on the sixth day God created man, and his name was Adam.

And the sons of Adam went forth and multiplied.

1995

IT WAS the hottest day there had been for years.

The sun banged down from almost straight overhead, Tony’s shadow a deep black puddle around his feet. He could feel the beads of sweat bubbling up on his forehead and soaking into his unruly mop of hair. The hills, which were barely a mile from the town, swam in the haze as if covered in a thin film of water and the tarmac was soft and pliable underfoot.

His palms were wet with sweat and the bulge in his back pocket seemed too obvious. Billy wasn’t going to be able to call him wrong this time.

Billy was his best friend and also his number one adversary. Whenever he got an idea Billy either laughed at it, knew a better one or, if he couldn’t think of something, he feigned boredom.

But this time Tony had proof. Yesterday had been too easy for Billy. Tony had told him about the elevator in the cupboard in his bedroom...the one that took him down to the tunnels that stretched under the hills, down to the dark caves where the giant rats chittered and the Morlocks ran their infernal machines.

“Show me,” Billy said.

Tony had taken up to the room and opened the door.

“There, on the side of the wall. See that knob? Just pull it and it takes you down,” he said, fingers crossed.

Of course Billy pulled the knob and nothing happened.

“The Morlocks have closed it up. They must have found out that I’ve been using it,” Tony said, desperate for Billy to see. It had been there last night...he felt sure of it.

“Morlocks – bollocks,” Billy said. He tittered behind his hand and they both collapsed in a fit of giggles and the subject was closed. He knew Billy wouldn’t give it another thought but Tony didn’t give up that easily...he knew that the Morlocks were real.

His Grandfather had told him about them. How they worked in the deep dark places, bringing out treasures from the hard stone walls. How they could hypnotize you into thinking they were human, how they kept the rats to protect them from prying eyes. How their machines were the only things that kept the world turning and how they were vicious...eating anything that strayed into their domain.

Tony knew it was true...he had seen it in the old man’s eyes and the shaking of his hands as he told the story. Granddad wouldn’t have lied to him...he had been a Commander.

Billy answered the door himself which was okay by Tony...Billy’s father always made him nervous, like the bull in Farmer Davies’ field...one minute placid and content, the next a raging steaming wall of blackness. At least with his own father you knew where you were. If he was sober you kept quiet, and if he was drunk you kept very quiet.

Billy slipped out quietly and they had turned the street corner before he spoke.

“Well superboy, what’s it to be today? Football? Cops and robbers? Or do you have any new ideas?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, trying to sound casual. “I thought we’d go and see the Morlocks.”

Billy hit him around the head, playfully, but it still hurt...he was a lot bigger than Tony.

“You’re not still on about that are you? It’s just a fairy story.” He raised his hand to stop Tony as he started to protest. “Oh, I know your Granddad told you, but he was just an old loony...everybody knows that.”

Tony was angry and it showed in his eyes. Billy stepped back, a look of fright on his face, as Tony reached into his back pocket.

“Oh yeah,” he said, “so what was an old loony doing with the key to the secret door?” He removed the key from his pocket and held it out to Billy, but not close enough to let him take it away...he’d made that mistake too many times before.

“It opens the door to the tunnel...the one my Granddad found...ages and ages ago. He worked with the other scientists and they found the way in and….”

Billy stopped him, otherwise he would have rambled on about the caverns of gold and the hot hissing machines and the pretend humans—Tony knew that Billy had heard it all before…but it didn’t stop him trying. And it didn’t stop Billy teasing him.

“You mean that the secret door is in the house? You want to go inside the house?” Billy smiled broadly, no doubt remembering how he’d ran off and left Tony in the dark hole the summer before and how Tony had cried and screamed until Billy had to come back and lead him out.

“You really want to go down to that cellar again?”

Tony nodded, with more resolve that he felt. In truth he felt petrified of the darkness and the echoes he knew would be waiting, but if that was the only way he could convince Billy, then that was what he would do.

“And you know where this door is?” Billy asked. Tony could see that Billy thought it was just another one of his crazy ideas. So he was pleased to bring a look of wonder to the bigger boy’s eyes when he took the old yellowing map and a small flashlight out of his pocket.

“It’s down another level...even underneath the cellar.” Tony said, trying, but not succeeding, to keep the tremor from his voice.

They talked little as they walked up the avenue towards the house...both aware of the aura, the mystique of the place they had just entered. As far as Tony knew, Billy and himself were the only kids from the town even to get as far as the cellar...most of the others were stopped by the authority of the giant iron gate at the foot of the avenue.

Tony didn’t blame them. The first time he had seen that gate he had almost peed his pants, and it was only after especially strong urging from Billy that he could make himself pass the gate and enter the grounds.

That time they had egged each other on, up the avenue into the house, even down as far as the cellar.

The thought of going down further than that caused his knees to tremble and his heart to bump along in a pitter-patter of fear. But he didn’t let any of that show. He had a point to prove to Billy and this time he intended to see it through.

Even in the heat of the day there was a hint of coldness surrounding the house, as if it sat in permanent shadow.

The twin bay windows peered along the driveway, continually vigilant against interlopers as they had been for the last fifty years.

The trees on the avenue hung close to the path, their untrimmed branches threatening to reach down and pluck the boys up into the boughs. Although neither of them realized it they were hunched over, heads to the ground.

Tony knew that the house hadn’t been used since the war, since his Granddad and his colleagues had worked there. But there was no external sign of decay...the windows had not been broken and the slates on the roof all remained in place. Even the old oak door stayed resolutely shut, a testament to the fear that the house instilled in the youth of the town.

Tony and Billy had been here before...twice before...on both occasions spurred on by a desire not to seem a coward to each other. But this time was different, this time they had a goal in mind.

Tony felt the bulge of the key hanging heavy in his back pocket as they approached the great door which creaked noisily as they pushed it open, the sound echoing in their ears long after they stopped pushing.

“Eh he he he,” Billy cackled, his back bent and hunched. “Come into my parlor.”

Tony forced a giggle, but his heart wasn’t in it, and Billy lapsed back into silence as they looked across the huge entrance hall.

Someone had been here since Tony and Billy’s last visit. Fast food cartons and beer cans were strewn across the floor and a particularly basic graffiti artist had been at work on the ornate wallpaper. Otherwise very little had been disturbed.

“What now Oh Wise One?” Billy whispered. Somehow the atmosphere in the house didn’t lend itself to speech...even the whispers took on a life of their own as they reverberated around the walls.

“Down to the cellar...where we went the last time,” Tony replied, trying to keep his voice as low as possible.

Billy grimaced as he turned away towards the kitchen and the trapdoor they had discovered on their last visit.

Whoever had been here had also discovered the trapdoor. Tony remembered that they had left it open...he had been too busy trying to get out as quickly as possible to worry about closing trapdoors. But now, as they entered the kitchen, they saw that the hatch had been closed.

And not just closed. A shiny, new, padlock gleamed in the lock.

“Somebody else comes here.” Tony whispered, and Billy nodded in reply.

“Maybe we’d better just get out.” Tony said, but in his heart he knew Billy better than that, and was proved right when Billy bent down and pulled at the trapdoor.

“The wood is rotten through. All we need to do is push something under this lip,” he said, running a finger along the edge of the door. “And we can have it up in no time. Stay here.”

Before Tony could protest Billy had gone.

The quiet fell on him. Through the kitchen window he could see that the sun was still beating down outside, but in here it was cold…cold and dry, and somehow musty, like old books gone damp.

He was about to leave to look for Billy when the boy returned carrying an iron bar...part of an old railing.

“I got this out in the garden,” Billy said. “I had to rip the shit out of a fence.”

That brought another fit of giggles, and Tony began to believe that everything would be okay.

Two minutes later they were standing above the hole, looking down into the blackness beneath, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

“So what did your Granddad say about this?” Billy asked, delaying the moment when they would have to descend into the dark.

“We have to go down...where we were before. There’s an old storeroom there...we must have missed it the last time...that’s where he locked them in. That’s where we find the door.” Tony replied, reading from the map.

“Your Granddad was full of shit...you know that?” Billy said as he lowered himself into the hole, slowly, being careful to keep his feet on the rungs of the ladder. Tony clipped the flashlight to his belt and folded the map back into his pocket before following.

As they descended the light got dimmer and Tony could only just see Billy’s blonde head when he looked down.

He started to tremble about halfway down and his legs went weak for a moment, but he pulled himself together, determined never again to show any cowardice when Billy was around. So they went down and the air got colder and the silence descended with them.

Billy was waiting at the bottom. Tony could just make out his pale face as he spoke.

“So what now Batman? And put that torch on...I don’t like being down in the dark.”

That was the first time Tony had ever heard Billy admitting fear and he felt a small thrill of pleasure...this place was getting to him.

Tony took out the map again and had to squint to read it in the dim torchlight.

“Over there, in the left-hand corner,” he pointed with the torch, lighting the rough walls. “There should be a storeroom where the scientists kept their equipment. Granddad said that….”

Billy interrupted him. “Yeah, yeah. Just shut up about your Granddad for a bit.”

Their voices set up echoes around the room, whispers coming back from all sides as they followed the torch beam. The chamber came to an end at a corner that turned right into a smaller room.

The floor here was littered with debris, pieces of sacking, empty beer cans, wine bottles, cigarette ends and Chinese take-away cartons.

“Looks like your Granddad got here before us,” said Billy, laughing as he jigged out of reach of the swinging torch. He started to say something else but Tony had seen a grayer patch on the wall.

He swung the torch round and there it was…Granddad’s door.

It was metal and, judging by the dents in it and the scrapes on its surface, it had stood up to many attempts to force it open. The only significant feature in an otherwise empty expanse of steel was the small-shadowed keyhole.

“What do you know. The old bastard was right,” Billy whispered. In the dim torchlight Tony could see the beginnings of doubt come into his eyes. “What do we do now?”

“We go in of course,” Tony replied, taking the key from his pocket.

It fit perfectly, turning easily in the lock with a loud click. The door swung open revealing a greater blackness beyond.

Up till this point Tony had wondered about Granddad’s stories. Part of him knew that there were no Morlocks...the same part that knew there was no Santa Claus.

But that didn’t stop him waiting for the sound of sleigh bells at Christmas and it wasn’t going to stop him finding out what was down that corridor.

He shone the torch around. The corridor led to another chamber barely ten feet away but the torch beam was stopped by blackness. He moved forward, gesturing for Billy to follow.

“Come on then. We didn’t come all this way for nothing.” Tony’s voice echoed, booming, much louder than before and the words continued, fading down the path ahead.

The path sloped slightly downwards and he noticed the puffs of dust being kicked up by their feet. Nobody had been this way for a long time.

The corridor led to a door that lay open. Beyond this was a large room that was still in blackness. They stopped as the torch lit up the open door and Billy’s face widened into a grin as he read the notice.